Taunton Away, 2nds
8-9 (10-0 Forfeit win) James Frost (2), Gareth Thomas (2), Dave Thomas (1), Magnus Dons (1), Joey Niblett (1), Amy Willis (1), Alex Thomas, Hannah Blackmore, Julie Saunders, Katy James
This game will go down as a 10-0 win to Dragons since about half of the Taunton second team started for the firsts later on, but a friendly was played in order to give everyone match practice.
For the first time in quite a few games, the Dragons second team didn’t include any debutants, but with 4 second team girl regulars out, a very inexperienced side took to the court, with 5 players having about 6 appearances between them!
The lack of experience showed early on, as it became apparent that the referee was whistle-shy, to say the least, and Taunton took full advantage, racing out to a four goal lead. Josh quickly called time out and proceeded to give the best time out speech ever. Within 1 minute it was 4-3 as James twice then Gareth followed Josh’s advice to the letter and nailed three runners on the bounce!
Unfortunately all our good work was undone as a few runners pulled the Taunton lead back out to 7-3, but crucially, we had gained a bit of self belief, so when Gareth and Taff went back into attack a couple of pinpoint passes allowed both to score from close range and we went in for half time at 7-5.
Rather like the first team match which followed, the second half started with dfences having adjusted to stop the tactics that had led to goals in the first half, and attacks failing to respond and for a long period neither team was able to score. Taunton scored an early goal, but it stayed at 5-8 for about 20 minutes before Magnus found his sprinting boots and sank his only running in shot. With both teams realising that even basics such as defended shots weren’t going to be called, we exchanged comical close range shots with defenders getting irate about the lack of whistle, and with time running out super sub Amy raced through for a runner to cut the lead to 1. But as with the first half, the second ended on the whistle for the goal, which was weird in itself but no weirder than half the sights which accompanied the game to the deafening slience from the whistle.
In such difficult circumstances the Dragons will be very pleased to have pushed what was increasingly the Taunton first team so well. We actually won the second half, thanks to another storming defensive performance, particularly from Alex whose improvement throughout the game against a very dangerous opponent was superb. Julie and Katy were both unlucky to see a couple of chances roll out and Hannah’s rebounding was great, considering she spent most of the game up against the tallest girl.
Man of the match though, must go to Gareth. An excellent battling display in defence against some physical opponents and two well taken goals, along with some hard work assisting the showboaters (Taff and his replacement Joey!) Well played fella!